Eight years after a wolf walked out of a pen and howled in Yellowstone National Park, it is clear the predators are here to stay. The restoration of wolves to Idaho and Yellowstone in 1995 has been wildly successful, even though many Westerners remain bitter about an intrusive federal government. Now, a decision announced earlier […]
If wolves can return to the West, why not New York?
Posted inWotr
Mention planning in Oregon and get ready for a yawn
Advice for party-goers: If you’re hoping to enthrall acquaintances and potential dates, avoid the terms “urban-growth boundary or “transit-oriented development.” While working recently on a story about Oregon’s land-use system, I was eager to share my findings at social occasions. Bad idea. Few Oregonians understand how it works, and my attempts at conversation yielded polite […]
Posted inWotr
Motorized rafts bring the public to enjoy Grand Canyon’s wonders
The National Park Service is now designing a new plan for managing whitewater river trips through the Grand Canyon. But in pursuit of a no-compromise agenda, a small group of wilderness advocates would like the clean, quiet, low-powered and environmentally friendly motors used on these trips banned. They’d like most of the park, including 240 […]
Posted inWotr
Grand Canyon and motorboats don’t mix
Last fall, standing on the traditional scouting point high above Grand Canyon’s legendary rapid, Lava Falls, we debated our course. Low water relieved us of the agony of choice: The left run, a maze of boulders, was too treacherous; we resigned ourselves to paddling the right-hand run through Lava’s thundering mayhem. Thirty years of river- […]
Posted inWotr
Living with bison at the edge of Yellowstone
Forty bison mill about on the football field at the school in Gardiner, Mont. One of the shaggy beasts rubs her head vigorously against the goalpost. A light snow is falling. I walk over and sit on a nearby boulder. I feel that it is the least I can do — just sit in the […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Ranching is preventing sprawl
Dear HCN, George Wuerthner is a skilled photographer and a committed activist, but he’s a lousy economist. His letter (HCN, 2/17/03: Condos or cows? Neither!) and his recent book, Welfare Ranching, amply testify to this. Wuerthner asserts that “ranching isn’t preventing sprawl now, nor will it in the future.” Yet he also states that high […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
American culture is doomed by growth
Dear HCN, Ed Marston, I want to thank you for your column on immigration and overpopulation (HCN, 2/3/03: Son of immigrants has a change of heart). I’m sure you have taken a lot of criticism since then, but you are right in what you’ve said. Overall, people refuse to admit that every problem in the […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Short Takes
Learn more about the benefits and challenges of local food production at the “Connecting Through Local Foods” conference, March 28-29, at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls. The conference will feature keynote speaker Gary Paul Nabhan, and cover topics from seed saving to farm bills, and marketing to alternative pest control. For more […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Tangled up in blue
“It has been rightly said: Color is the first principle of place.” A quick look across any desert reveals a lack of watery blues and leafy greens. But Ellen Meloy fills that void in her memoir, The Anthropology of Turquoise. She uses turquoise — the color and the mineral — to explore desert geology, flora […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Does your representative make the grade?
It’s report card time again for Congress, and Western politicians are seeing more Fs than As. According to the League of Conservation Voters’ annual National Environmental Scorecard, Western congressional members had some of the worst environmental voting records in the nation. Out of a possible score of 100, the senators of Colorado, Idaho, Utah and […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
White House record on rollbacks
It’s undoubtedly grim reading. But it should be required for every conservationist — Democrat, Green, Republican or Independent. The Natural Resources Defense Council has just released its review of the Bush administration’s 2002 record on the environment. In Rewriting the Rules: The Bush Administration’s Assault on the Environment, the council details more than 100 federal […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Backcountry adventure in the comfort of your living room
Armchair horseback riders can hit the trail with Don West’s Have Saddle, Will Travel: Low-Impact Trail Riding and Horse Camping. The book features West’s personal stories, poems and “Don’s Daily Dozen,” 13 of the author’s favorite exercises to keep riders in top form. As readers relive West’s wilderness adventures — which include chasing down frightened […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Coastal open space gets a boost
Score one point for endangered steelhead and the threatened California red-legged frog: The 82,000-acre Hearst Ranch, on the Pacific Coast just south of Big Sur, may be forever protected from development. Famous for Hearst Castle, the elaborate mansion built for media tycoon William Randolph Hearst early in the 20th century, the sprawling, hilly ranch includes […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Looters sneak into monument
President Clinton established the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwestern Colorado to protect an estimated 20,000 archaeological sites, ranging from scattered potsherds to intact cliff dwellings (HCN, 4/23/01: Monuments caught in the crosshairs). Monument officials, however, are having a hard time fending off looters and vandals. Since the monument was created in June […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Dredging plans stall on the Snake River
By now, the dredging machinery would have been sucking 319,000 cubic yards of sand and silt from the bottom of the Snake River west of Lewiston, Idaho. Barges would be hauling the muck downriver and dumping it out of the way. Then tugboats would have dragged giant rakes across the spoils, trying to recreate habitat […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Parasite could help save salmon
Endangered salmon may get help from a strange source: Blood-sucking, eel-like fish called lampreys. On Jan. 28 a coalition of environmental groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect four species of lamprey under the Endangered Species Act. Two of the species are parasitic, latching onto salmon and other ocean-going fish to feed […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Water face-off in Fresno
The federal government has given the city of Fresno an ultimatum: Either change the way you write your water bills, or risk losing a third of your water supply. A 1992 law forbids the federal government from renewing water contracts with central California cities, unless the cities bill residents based on how much water they […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
The Latest Bounce
The money’s still rolling in to protect 97,000 acres of Colorado’s San Luis Valley. After The Nature Conservancy negotiated a $31.28 million price tag for the Baca Ranch last year, the federal government kicked in $10.5 million (HCN, 2/18/02: Dunes shifts toward park status). Now, Congress has pledged $12 million from the Land and Water […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Engagement in a time of terror
Who do we believe? How do we behave? These are questions I hold as we watch President Bush make his case for war. Our Department of Homeland Security recently placed us on “high alert/code orange,” advised us to buy duct tape and cover our windows with plastic, then in the same breath told us not […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Heard Around the West
Vive la France! There, we’ve said it, knowing full well those are fighting words — especially in Nevada. The owners of a restaurant in Reno were so angry at France for thwarting our Iraqi war plans at the United Nations, they poured expensive French champagne into a bucket on the sidewalk. And if they’d had […]